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-- 'No God' Ads, Soon To Appear On TTC Vehicles, Spark Heated Debate
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Originally posted by dipsetrenegade The thing I love about logic is I don't have to prove god doesn't exist, someone else has to prove he does.

It works both ways. Both camps need to prove their position, because thus far, neither has been able to.

The best science can do is discredit specific stories, but that will never prove the non-existence of a supreme being or energy that knit the universe together, the best science can prove is that specific religious stories are full of shit.

Until science can tell us how the universe was created, and how it was created from NOTHING (which would be necessary if there is no god(s)), then the best science can do is say "Hey, Noah's ark is impossible!".

The problem with science is that it's limited to what we can observe within our universe. If there is a creator, the creator doesn't live within this universe, the creator lives outside the realms of time and space. I picture someone like me playing Sim City, I'm not IN the city I create, I live in my own world, yet the city exists, and I have control over it. Do you suppose there are little sims running around my city questioning my existence? Probably not, it's just a computer game, but if there were, they would no sooner be able to prove my existence than we are capable of proving the existence of our creator.

Now, if a little message popped up on my screen one day from one of my little sims saying "Hey, I know you're out there Matt, the creator, I need some help, I'm stuck on this piece of deteriorating road down on H-78, think you could help me out? And I help that little sim, I've proved my existence to him, but he still has to share that with others, yet there'd be no evidence, no witnesses... Just one believer among the throng. I just performed a miracle for that little dude, and yet he'd still be shot down because scientifically, the miracle I performed would be impossible, and some little sim-scientist would say "Well, the wind must have blown away the debris." or some such "logical" explanation, yet, I go on existing, watching over my little city, protecting and caring for it, until the end of the day when it's time for bed, and I turn the damn computer off.

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Originally posted by Spam It works both ways. Both camps need to prove their position, because thus far, neither has been able to. The best science can do is discredit specific stories, but that will never prove the non-existence of a supreme being or energy that knit the universe together, the best science can prove is that specific religious stories are full of shit. Until science can tell us how the universe was created, and how it was created from NOTHING (which would be necessary if there is no god(s)), then the best science can do is say "Hey, Noah's ark is impossible!". The problem with science is that it's limited to what we can observe within our universe. If there is a creator, the creator doesn't live within this universe, the creator lives outside the realms of time and space. I picture someone like me playing Sim City, I'm not IN the city I create, I live in my own world, yet the city exists, and I have control over it. Do you suppose there are little sims running around my city questioning my existence? Probably not, it's just a computer game, but if there were, they would no sooner be able to prove my existence than we are capable of proving the existence of our creator. Now, if a little message popped up on my screen one day from one of my little sims saying "Hey, I know you're out there Matt, the creator, I need some help, I'm stuck on this piece of deteriorating road down on H-78, think you could help me out? And I help that little sim, I've proved my existence to him, but he still has to share that with others, yet there'd be no evidence, no witnesses... Just one believer among the throng. I just performed a miracle for that little dude, and yet he'd still be shot down because scientifically, the miracle I performed would be impossible, and some little sim-scientist would say "Well, the wind must have blown away the debris." or some such "logical" explanation, yet, I go on existing, watching over my little city, protecting and caring for it, until the end of the day when it's time for bed, and I turn the damn computer off.

/Thread

only shit like this would pass here in north america. well, even thought of in the first place.

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Originally posted by nycionx only shit like this would pass here in north america. well, even thought of in the first place.

uh, the atheist signs originated in england

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Originally posted by DJ_Elyot It is naive to conclude that strong atheism is fallacious or unjustified merely for unprovability reasons, and I wish diginut and others would stop doing this.

I never said that it was fallacious or unjustified. It's a belief, a philosophy. Philosophies cannot be wrong unless they are clearly based on false premises.

What's fallacious and unjustified is insisting to others that your belief must be completely and universally true merely because the alternatives are fallacious or illogical. Atheism is not a scientific position as several people here seem to believe; it is not testable, and does not and cannot predict outcomes.

You go ahead and believe what you believe on the basis of whatever logic you feel is adequate to justify it. Just cut the grandstanding until you have proof. Otherwise you're no better than the fundies.

What still gets me, is if there is a god - what created god? what did god come from? Then in turn, what created what created god? and so on and so forth.

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Originally posted by kaniz What still gets me, is if there is a god - what created god? what did god come from? Then in turn, what created what created god? and so on and so forth.

What caused the big bang? Any rational explanation for the origins of the universe (assuming causality - try dispensing with that assumption if you want a real headache) relies on the existence of some actor that simply has no beginning, or somehow isn't subject to the laws of physics as we presently know them. It doesn't matter what your theory is, you can always ask "and what happened before that?"

A deist will say, without making any other assumptions, that said actor is/was sentient or at least organized. An atheist will say that the entire process was completely non-deterministic. Either position seems tenable to me based on what we know today. It only becomes untenable when you move into traditional religious territory and start making a whole bunch of arbitrary assumptions about the actor's form and function.

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Originally posted by DigiNut You go ahead and believe what you believe on the basis of whatever logic you feel is adequate to justify it. Just cut the grandstanding until you have proof. Otherwise you're no better than the fundies.

As stated before, I'm a de facto atheist. I am an extremely strong advocate of the process of MAKING DECISIONS as if one was certain that no god exists. Of course I have no proof, but I accept the non-existance of god as being true based on reasons of pragmatism (it is more helpful to not bother believing in god) and theological noncognitivism (the question of the existence of "God" is meaningless or fallacious under various definitions).

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Originally posted by DJ_Elyot As stated before, I'm a de facto atheist. I am an extremely strong advocate of the process of MAKING DECISIONS as if one was certain that no god exists.

I would only accept that argument if you could show that there are strong practical reasons to take this approach, i.e. that making decisions based on a deist or even agnostic philosophy would cause more problems than it would solve - which we've been over already, and there wasn't much evidence for that either.

Otherwise, the "de facto" atheism is pretty much the same as "strong" atheism. It's sort of epistemologically fundamental that no one can truly be 100% certain of anything, just certain enough for it not to matter; beyond a reasonable doubt, so to speak. I normally wouldn't nitpick like this, but you're asking me to accept the literal definition of "strong atheist" so as to place you outside of it, and the literal definition is effectively a fictitious construct. When someone says that not only are they just a few cents shy of positive that there is no god, but that the world would be a better place if everybody else thought the same way, that's about as "strong atheist" as they come.

You're entitled to your opinion, but I see these terms as nothing more than arbitrary divisions in order to justify the burden of proof dilemma. The distinction between "100% positive" and "99% positive" is not significant enough in practice to be relevant. There is some distinction between saying that I should believe something and saying that I should behave as though I believed it even if I don't, but that only means you require evidence for a different thing.

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Originally posted by DigiNut You're entitled to your opinion, but I see these terms as nothing more than arbitrary divisions in order to justify the burden of proof dilemma. The distinction between "100% positive" and "99% positive" is not significant enough in practice to be relevant. There is some distinction between saying that I should believe something and saying that I should behave as though I believed it even if I don't, but that only means you require evidence for a different thing.

Some would argue that the difference is akin to the distinction between something having a probability of zero and being impossible. If you're playing a random slot machine with negative expected value, then you will run out of money with probability 1. However, there exist infinite sequences of moves (possibly infinitely many such sequences, even) which will result in you never running out of money. But they, as a set, have "measure zero", so to speak, and thus occur with probability zero. It's the same sense by which you would say "the probability of a random number between 3 and 4 being equal to pi is zero"; of course this is nevertheless not an impossible event.

In the same sense, some would argue that the distinction is not between being "100% positive" and "99% positive", but rather between being certain that the existence of god is an event of probability zero, or an event that is truly impossible. There are plenty of probabilistic arguments that prove that the conditional probability of a god of a given description existing is zero. But they can't prove that it's impossible.

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Originally posted by DigiNut What caused the big bang? Any rational explanation for the origins of the universe (assuming causality - try dispensing with that assumption if you want a real headache) relies on the existence of some actor that simply has no beginning, or somehow isn't subject to the laws of physics as we presently know them. It doesn't matter what your theory is, you can always ask "and what happened before that?" A deist will say, without making any other assumptions, that said actor is/was sentient or at least organized. An atheist will say that the entire process was completely non-deterministic. Either position seems tenable to me based on what we know today. It only becomes untenable when you move into traditional religious territory and start making a whole bunch of arbitrary assumptions about the actor's form and function.

What gets me though, is if one is willing to accept that God exists without the need for him to be 'created' - makes me ask: If God simply exists without the need for an external creator, why cant the basics of the universe exist and just be "there" without the need for an external creator?

Does God believe in Atheists?

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Originally posted by ChemEnhanced Does God believe in Atheists?

Did man make god? Or god make man?

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Originally posted by Nick Cenik

And Skeletor's looking a little worse for the wear these days, hein? ...

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Originally posted by Yohan oh please religion is like any other moral values.

I disagree... you dont need religon to be a moral person. in fact, there is a religon out there (you know which one im talking about) that says you deserve death if you chose to give up your religon..

how is that moral? is it moral just because the religon says so?

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Originally posted by El K Dee lets just put it this way...if you believe in God, you practice your faith and if not, you just do nothing and "enjoy life".

what about if your faith/religon says that you are not allowed to give up your faith/religon, otherwise you are entitled to a death sentence....?

should you still practice your faith or get killed?

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Originally posted by Prometheus Xex Remember that religion is perpetuated through not really teaching, but by forcing. A child is born into religion and not given a choice because a parent will bestow their own faith upon them and not give options to other faiths to follow. An Atheist has to "break out" of the mold their parents had tried to put them into. Once the seeds are planted in the young mind, the majority will grow up with their faith fully entrenched and continue the cycle when their own children are born. This is why an idea that started thousands or hundreds of years ago slowly grows to the point where it becomes the norm. It spreads like a virus in a way. I hate to use that term since I don't mean it in a bad way... but you get the point.

100% agreed.

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Originally posted by Orko It is completely foolish to say that a younger generation is filled with non-believers. Maybe in your group, but religion is alive and well.

Well, in my opinion, the eastern part of the world is full of religon ( some countries have a law that it is illegal to give up religon). i think that in north america and some of eurpoe, im starting to see alot of athiests more than i ever did. Its just my opinion, i have no evidence, so i am not 100% correct.

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Originally posted by djshan ( some countries have a law that it is illegal to give up religon).

...only the ruling one that is, all others is ok

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Originally posted by Jem_hadar Did man make god? Or god make man?

IMO... both.

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